Dress Pattern from Scratch

For someone like myself, who has never attended any dress making class before, drawing the right pattern is a bit tricky. I usually do it by using any existing clothes that fit and trace the pattern from there.  It works, although I cannot say that this is the right way of doing.  But what matters is that it works, right?  So, in this entry here, I am going to show how to draw a pattern to sew a little girl’s dress.

First, get a dress that fit your child.  Fold it lengthwise into two, with the front facing out.  Put it on a piece of paper and trace the outline of the top, right till the torso, where the skirt starts,  Remove the dress and you will need to draw a line to join the torso.  Straighten any crook lines with a ruler. We need to draw the seam allowance next.  I prefer my seam allowance to be 1cm.  Thus, I drew another line, measuring 1cm out from my earlier tracing.   This, I label as the back piece.  Note that I also labelled the seam allowance as 1cm so as not to confuse myself later.  I also labelled the folding part as ‘fold’.  When we transfer the pattern to the fabric, the ‘fold’ of the pattern should coincide with the folding of the fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

It should be noted that the above is for the back piece of a dress where the zipper is at the side.  If you prefer to sew the zipper at the middle, then you will need to cut 2 piece of the fabric, as the mirror image.  I find it easier to fold and cut the fabric as described, and then cut along the ‘fold’ to get 2 identical mirror pieces.

Next, we need to trace the pattern of the front piece.  The back and front piece differs at the neckline.  The neckline for the front piece is usually lower than the back.  The steps for tracing the back piece is repeated.  However, we couldn’t draw across the front neckline.  Thus, I put a mark at where the neckline is, removed the dress, and draw the curve freehand.   Again, the drawing of the 1cm seam allowance is repeated.   This piece is then labelled as the front. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we move on to drawing the pattern of the skirt.  Measure the skirt starting from the torso to to the end.  I labelled it as A cm, as shown in the pic.  Then, measure the front piece of the skirt, from left to right (all fabric spread out) and label it as B cm.  Next we draw a rectangle on a piece of paper, with the length as A +2 cm and the width as B/2 + 1cm. 

For example, if you find A as 30cm, then you should draw the length of the rectangle as 32cm (30 +2).  If B measures as 50 cm, then the width of the rectangle should be 26 cm (50/2 + 1).  Label the side as ‘fold’ to remind yourself to coincide it with the fold of the fabric when cutting.  The reason to add 2 cm seam allowance to the length (A) is that 1cm is for the top where the skirt will join with the top and another 1cm for the hem of the skirt.  If you feel that your child will outgrow the skirt very soon (children grow very fast), by all means, allow a few extra centimetres for the hem so that you can lengthen it when the time comes.  It should be reminded that you will need to cut 2 pieces of this skirt pattern for the front and back.

So now, the pattern of the dress is ready.  Happy sewing!